Monday, October 06, 2008

The Things We Did As Kids

Not too long ago, one of my friends sent me an e-mail with pictures of stuff that we used to have during the era of people around my age group (That means if you were born around the 1980s).

The e-mail brought back memories of the things I used to do as a kid.

Lets start with the stuff I used to watch.

THE TV

I started off with this cartoon called He-Man Thundercats. I used to think that little red dragon creature in the picture was cute... *sigh*, what a distorted perception I had of the word "cute" back then.

Then I slowly grew up to learn to watch... DORAEMON!!!

Who doesn't love Doraemon right? Even up till now I treasure my Doraemon memories. At one point when I was studying in London my phone had a Doraemon ringtone to it.And finally, when I was getting older, the testosterone began to kick in and like all boys my age, we went to more "MANLY" and cool stuff to watch...

TRANSFORMERS!!!

I remember how they would always play all these cartoons somewhere between 5.00PM - 6.00PM each day. As far as Little Timmy was concerned, 5.00PM-6.00PM is private TV time.. nobody was allowed to touch the remote.

THE MUNCHIES

That's also around the time when they would play TV commercials for things like TORA.

I still remember some of the Tora commercials. They never seemed to focus on the chocolate itself but always focused on the toy they had in each box. The commercials would have a bunch of kids all playing with those little plastic toys whether they're little flying helicopters or little plastic bugs that squirt water.

And let me tell you this, those ads worked!

Whenever I went to my tuition class I would always sneak out to buy a pack of Tora that cost RM1.00 each just for the toy but here's the joke: the toy in the TV Commercial looks soo much cooler than the actual toy!

Like if the actual toy could squirt water, it could squirt up to 5CM away but the toy in the TV Commercial looked like it could squirt water to 10 miles from where you were standing.

The thing about Tora also is that they keep updating it with new toys and new commercials almost each month so I never stop buying them. I mean once I feel that I've gotten all the Tora toys available, *POOF* another commercial with a new toy would appear in front of me and I would go out and buy it again.

But while I only bought Tora for the toys, I made sure my mum bought me plenty of these.I used to love this.... and I still don't understand why though. It's just sugar on a biscuit. I used to like biting off the sugar and eating it on its own before going on to its biscuit.

Almost as much as I liked these little animal crackers.But here's what I loved the most of all the munchies we had back then.

BUBBLE GUM!!!

I mean I don't know but somehow back in my school, when you were eating bubble gum, you were "COOL". Probably because if you're not allowed to bring bubble gum to school and if you got caught you get a huge scolding from teachers but I guess even as early as back then, girls loved guys who broke rules and acted all dangerous and so.

I also used to love this bubble gum for the temporary 'tattoo' that you could put on to your arm or anywhere. Just add a bit of water and stick it on till it dries.

THE TOYS

Then comes the things we play with.

I guess all boys grew up with these little toy soldiers.I don't know what it is about them but I loved lining up an entire freaking army of them all around my room. Funny thing though is after I've lined them up, I kinda lose my way on what to do with them. I mean they don't exactly shoot each other or move around on their own.

So what I would end up doing is getting one of my big toy trucks and ramming them all down, making sound effects of the trampled soldiers"AIEEEEE!!!!! AIEEEeeeee!!!!"

Of course, boys love to play with girls too and girls don't fancy toy soldiers (No they think their Barbie Dolls are all so much better eventhough they don't come armed with bazookas and M-16s).

So for games with girls, we used to play a card game called"HAPPY FAMILY".I remember how after exams we would always play a lot of "Happy Family" in school. Probably one of the few games we were allowed to bring to school to play after we were done with our exams.

And when we weren't allowed to bring anything to school before exams, the girls used to play games like this with the boys.Now I never really friggin understood what the hell this paper thing was supposed to do but I think it was supposed to somehow tell my fortune or something... but I don't know and I didn't care... a girl was playing a game with me and that was the only thing that mattered.

Heck I lived a very confused childhood. On one hand I loved the attention the girls in my class gave me, but on the other hand I was the leader of the G.R.O.S.S. (Get Rid Of Slimy girlS) club that I started in primary school after reading way too much of Calvin & Hobbes.

Of course by the time I turned 13, hormones kicked in and I realized that I did like girls after all.. very very much indeed.

But well among the other cool toys I used to play with friends was this.This little revolver gun that shoots a very small dose of gunpowder.

All my friends used to arm themselves with this and we would go hiding under cars and all shooting at each other and always shouting"I GOT YOU I GOT YOU I GOT YOU!!!"

and some of us shouting back"NO... I GOT YOU FIRST!!!"

or

"NOO!!! YOU MISSED ME!!! I MOVED AWAY".

I was never too sure how anyone knew whether we hit or missed but I remember thinking to myself at one point:"Sonofabitch always say that you move away... wait till I get a real gun and we'll see you dodge my real bullet".

Today all the friends I used to play this with are all grown ups working at big companies with girlfriends. Ishh ... how did we even make it this far.

Now here's the last thing that really brought back loads of memories.

The PENCILBOX.Somehow back in primary school it was cool to have pencilboxes like these full of buttons to press. They had everything from pencil sharpeners, to a million different compartments and probably a coffee maker in there somewhere.

That was like the status symbol in school. The better your pencilbox the richer you were.. eventhough one of those probably one cost like RM5 - RM10 each.

Funny thing is how that pencilbox so quickly ran out of fashion. From being cool in primary school, to quickly becoming "childish" by the time we hit secondary school. By the time you were Form 5, your pencilbox had better me nothing more than a zip pencilcase or you were a lame ass.

But ahh.. finally.. there were the erasers.

All the girls took pride in little cute-sy erasers like this.Which most of them never used to rub anything, funny enough. I mean all it was there for was to make their pencilboxes look pretty.

The guys like myself however... WE LOVED... THE FLAG ERASERS!!!

and I would collect loads and loads of them with all the different countries.

Ahh... I wonder if the kids of today grow up to the same or similar childhood as we all did during our time. I know they probably don't watch He-Man or eat Tora anymore but maybe ... just maybe... they still collect Flag Erasers from different countries.

hey, that's not fair.. us girls may not use those cute-sy erasers, but i'm sure u guys don't use any of those flag erasers too!! unless u hv extras of the same ones.. =P then again, i like playin the "flip-ur-eraser-and-land-on-opponent's-eraser" game.. aha once u flip the eraser n it lands on ur friend's eraser, u win!! :D

love those pencil cases.. n i use to sing out "thunder thunder thunder thunder cat~!!" :D

I'm 4 years younger than you, and not anywhere near as successful as you are, but I've been through all of those memories you mentioned. It's like we had the same childhood. Except the Happy Family and Pistol thing.

hahah, yeah very truee, i used to keep all those little toys. one more thing about the erasers, can anyone remember what we used to do with them, I do remember I played the eraser game with my friend, something like eraser war where you used your fingers to try to bounce your eraser over your friend's and when it does, you win lol, AND WHERE ARE THE BOTTLECAPS too?

sigh great times man, now it's all work, work, not enough money, work , money and more work. where are those happy days, they seem so hard to find.....

man i was born in the early 90s and i actually did that too! though the erasers were not for collecting they were more for fighting by being able to kiap the other eraser..but other than that it was pretty much the same. sure brings back memories..;)

i'm a girl...i play with Barbies and all... but i also did almost everything u've mentioned! Maybe because i was quite tomboyish at some points of my life too! Hahah... the best of both worlds i guess (^_^v)

*the good ol days*

p/s:: i doubt kids nowadays really got to play these kinda things... they are mostly too hooked up with all things high-tech i.e. PSP... Gameboy and the likes. Sadnya...

oh myyy brought back so much memoriess...and how come you don't watch Power Rangers..during your time,don't have Power Rangers yet is it?hmmm

i love those biscuits too..the one with colourful sugar on it..and yess i seperate the sugar from the biscuits..but i always eat the biscuits first instead of the sugar..cause i want to save the best for last -_-"

and nyehe Happy Family...that time don't have Uno cards yet hor?hehehe and yesss i remember the paper fortune thingy...like "what colour do you want?" and bla bla bla ohh bluee eee you like that guy or something like that.

and haha i used to collect those eraserss too..like some hobby to collect erasers and i still have them in a pencilcase till now!and they are still brand new (the last time i check =p)

and and and the guys dun just collect the flag erasers right..they play like "rubber rubber"..like flip flip and see whose rubber goes on top of whose (why does it sound so wrong now?=/) and and also some football game with it.

what about "conquer" hehe..that's the game i play with guys..where we draw X and O on math exercise book to see who conquer who..

what about ice and waterrrr

okay i should stop commenting.hehe sorry for such a longg comment!i've never commented that much on your blog before XD

yeah, i was thinking of the name of the card game that i used to play when i was a kid few days ago and yes, it was "Happy Family", where you have to collect all 4 family members and form a happy family then you win.A great post indeed, you brought my childhood memories back....

darn true....especially tora, pencil box and flower biscuit...hahahhai used to watch smurf back then...brings back memories of good old days...but i believe now kids are not into this anymore...but pc games...LOL

I used to play a game at school. All u needed was a pencil & paper. I call it Pencil War. You drew your home base, with lots of guns, and send ur mini battle cruisers out to war. You'd take the pencil, aim at ur opponents mini cruisers and try to destroy it wif a slide of the pencil...

Of coz u provided the sound effects la.. "ch..ch..chew!!" Hmm...I wonder if that is still a popular school game..??

Yes, I remember that game , Pencil War. But, we didn't have any name for it. But, we played it differently. I think we played point by point. We drew a point then destroy it one-by-one. Those were the good old days.

classic stuff... especially the pencil box case...I remembered used to play warship with friends and more pencil u could put in, more missiles can be fired and more compartments mean, errr more "power" LOL....

Tora and Ding Dang didn't get out of my mind but I wonder do kids nowadays appreciate these things ?I remember my time ppl started with Nintendo and Megadrive and not to mention a battle between GameBoy and GameGear.

Bottle caps , Street Fighter sticker book (collect all and get some present or what) was also another classic.... btw, those who live around the Klang Valley, remembered Mimaland ?

Pencil war, pen war (spin the pen and kick the opponent out of the table), conquer , Monopoly, etc...

I'm from the 90's! And so much memories clicked! I keep hearing myself going, ya man!! that was the one! like tora. My bro and I used to be crazy about the toys but ditch the chocolates aside. (no one remembers how they taste like now, i bet. haha) The pencilbox was part of the memories too! Used to be envy of frens who have them.

Something's different though. Guys in primary school don't collect flag erasers. But instead its pokemon! And they would used the pokemon erasers to 'fight'. Well you know those games.

The four 'petals' paper was also damn popular back then. It was just the hit thing that if you dunno, it will be just so uncool. LOL

Yeap, gummy bears over here too! And there's the mini burger candy (forgot its name) and the mini pizza candy.

OMG, im reading this at work and everything comes flooding back to me... the pencilbox was a killer cuz my parents didnt want to get me that. but I tink you forgot one thing, the water bottle with the sling!!! you press a button and it flicks open.. THat was the status symbol too~

omg. I can so relate to this. All those memories flash back from getting scolded for reading too much doraemon to playing rubber wars. The only play thing with rubbers now are completely different.....

even though I'm much younger.. But i remember all that too... I know i love tora.. the happy family game..the chewing gums for sure!! hehe~ and the small small sugary biscuit.. Nice post u have there!!